Keith Urban Gives the Guitar Off His Back to Young Fan at Show

(Image credit: John Shearer/Getty Images)

Some wild things happen at Keith Urban shows.

You may recall that on July 2, while performing in New Hampshire, Urban gave a birthday present to fan Robert Joyce when he let him come onstage and play his guitar. Before anyone knew what was happening, Joyce kicked into Urban’s “Good Thing” and treated the crowd to some jaw-dropping shredding, captured in a video that quickly went viral.

More recently, Urban showed his generosity again when he gave a young fan the guitar off his back in the middle of performing a concert.

Urban was playing the BB&T Pavilion in Camden, New Jersey, on August 26, when he spotted 12-year-old fan Rocco Alessandro holding a bright-green sign above his head. It read, “Hi Mr Keith, I’m just learning to play !!!guitar!!”

Without stopping his band, Urban removed his guitar, wiped it down and applied his signature to it. He then handed it over to Rocco before returning to the stage, grabbing another ax and continuing with the song.

Urban has been making a habit of handing out guitars at his shows. Rocco said he hoped to score one and hatched his plan the day prior to the concert. “The night before I couldn’t sleep because I was trying to figure out what to write on my sign,” he tells the Delaware State News.

Take a look. The action starts around the two-minute mark.

Christopher Scapelliti is editor-in-chief of Guitar Player magazine, the world’s longest-running guitar magazine, founded in 1967. In his extensive career, he has authored in-depth interviews with such guitarists as Pete Townshend, Slash, Billy Corgan, Jack White, Elvis Costello and Todd Rundgren, and audio professionals including Beatles engineers Geoff Emerick and Ken Scott. He is the co-author of Guitar Aficionado: The Collections: The Most Famous, Rare, and Valuable Guitars in the World, a founding editor of Guitar Aficionado magazine, and a former editor with Guitar World, Guitar for the Practicing Musician and Maximum Guitar. Apart from guitars, he maintains a collection of more than 30 vintage analog synthesizers.

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